Someone Somewhere
by G.E Waldo
Summary: Atlantis is back from the bottom of the ocean and Rodney is back from his planetary grave, but things are never easy for this group.
1. Chapter 1

**Someone...Somewhere...**

_I recommend you read "Sometime, Somehow" as it is the background to this story. _

**SGASGASGASGASGASGASGA**

Sheppard liked the morning stroll through the halls of Atlantis between his quarters and the Mess - feeling out the atmosphere of the city, how she felt, the lovely lady who had become his home. The faces of familiar people and places, things which he had come to rely on not to vary too much with the changing of the years, these were his security blanket. The walk itself had become a ritual, a kind of mind yoga that left him at peace and ready to face anything. At least it had been at one time and with these morning strolls he was doing his damndest to re-awaken that sense of homey goodness.

Something bounced off his skull and buzzed passed him, circling above his head and then dive-bombing again. Sheppard cursed a blue streak and ducked as another familiar voice chuckled from around a corner. "McKay, what the hell-?"

Rodney McKay, former lead scientist of Atlantis and fondly annoying best pal, appeared from his hiding spot with a compact remote-control in his left hand, the fingers of his right working the toggle switches. "You should have seen your face." Rodney teased, keeping his eyes on his flying...whatever.

"What the hell is that thing?" Sheppard asked. It moved fast, too fast for his eyes to nail down what it actually was.

Rodney pressed a button and the thing slowed, coming to a controlled rest on his out-stretched palm like a trained Budgie.

Once he saw what it was, Sheppard stepped back. "Jesus, Rodney, an Iratus replicator bug - are you _nuts?_ We just got rid of them - don't you have any idea how dangerous that is? If Weir finds out you kept one, she'll blow a gasket."

"You're wrong." McKay said simply, his impish grin reeked of self assurance.

"What are you talking about?"

"I said you're wrong." Rodney turned it over and popped open a tiny hatch so Sheppard could see that the guts of this Iratus bug were wholly mechanical and electronic. There were no visible nanites inside to speak of. "This is not an Iratus bug," Rodney explained with pride, "this is my own invention. I have created the world's – the _galaxy's_ - first totally controllable, _programmable_ artificially intelligent Iratus bug spy."

Sheppard had to admit, it was kind of cool. "Okay, I'm impressed. _Why?"_

Rodney worked a switch and once again the imitation Iratus began to swoop and whirl in flight above their heads. "Well, ask yourself this, how do the Replicators replicate?"

Sheppard knew it was a trick question and from years of experience with Rodney he knew he should not to try to answer it, but Rodney's enthusiasm for a new idea was catching, plus it was fun to see Rodney playing again. He had filled out since they had returned to Atlantis and was looking very much his old self - if a trifle slimmer. But in the last few weeks, his skin had returned to a healthy glow and his enthusiasm for getting back to work was catching. Besides while they all waited on Beckett's green light for Rodney to go off-world again, the man had to keep occupied with something.

Sheppard ventured the answer they, including Rodney, had come to hypothesize "Um, because we know they work like cells, they build new nanites?"

Rodney was bouncing on his heels, a happy man. "Wrong, wrong, wrong, all of it _wrong."_

It also tickled Sheppard to see how delighted Rodney was that he didn't know the answer. Sheppard didn't mind being wrong if it made his friend feel good. After all he had been through the scientist could use all the emotional lifts he could get. "Then you were wrong, too, Rodney."

"Yes-yes-yes-yes but my point being _now_ I am no longer wrong, I am right."

"Okay, I give. Why is everyone but you wrong about the Replicators?"

"Cells use energy like food-sugars and proteins to build new cells or rebuild old ones, but the Replicators do not use food energy or any substance that we have been able to identify. They use energy to run, but as far as we are able to tell, not to replicate – now why is that?"

Sheppard didn't really feel like speculating. It was fine morning. "They're sleepy?"

Rodney shut down the bug and it fell out of the air into his waiting hand. He walked with Sheppard. "No, because...well, we don't exactly know why, but it's worth looking into – right? I mean, one day we'll run into them again and it'd be nice to be ready. For-armed is fore-er-_ready_ or whatever that saying is. Anyway, I've been reading more of the ancient data-base which information, as you know, we have barely scratched the surface of, and I've learned a few things."

Sheppard waited a few seconds and then encouraged his over-stimulated friend "L-i-i-i-ke...?"

"Like when the Ancient's first created the nanites, they were originally designed to mimic the Ancients way of doing things, building, learning, adapting, etc, etc but the point is the Ancients realised the nanites had begun to evolve beyond their original programming and suspected they were becoming a threat, and that's why they shut them down. But the other point is, how did the Ancients make the nanites to be self-sustaining and by sustaining I mean _self_-maintaining and replicating?"

"You know I never really was into Dr Seuss as a kid..."

McKay pressed his lips together in a show of barely contained patience from the super genius to the invariably less so. "I think the nanites, and therefore the Replicators have a source energy that they use to build more of themselves."

"You do?" Sheppard held out his hand and Rodney placed the fake Iratus into his palm. It was almost as light as a feather. Rodney had done a bang-up job with the materials.

"Yes. I mean, think about it, we know the Replicators made their own ships on their home world but they didn't make them out of nanites and why not? It would be faster, more adaptable, a way smarter and easier way to do so _but_ they didn't. And that's because the source energy and so the energy-source _material_ was missing from their planet."

"So where do you think this source energy-slash-matter is?"

"I think they have a ship with a quantum singularity and that is how they obtain their raw energy and therefore their material. It makes sense."

In the world of Rodney's mind it did. "That's a bit of a leap. What about getting this energy and material to where the Replicators happen to be, I doubt they've been calling up FedEx."

"It's probably a ship. In fact it has to be a ship. Opening a quantum singularity planet-side, never mind harvesting the resulting energy would reduce any world to a handful of quantum particles if the power ever got away from them – it's much too dangerous. They'd need a locale' they could abandon quickly if need be and therefore – _ship_."

"And this ship is...where?"

"Well, of course I don't know where the ship is yet, but I'm still researching that."

"Oh." Sheppard stopped to stand aside and let people walk passed who were in more of a hurry than them, pulling Rodney aside as well.

"Yes." Rodney fished out a small portable flash-drive from his pocket. "Zelenka and I went spelunking-"

"You mean like in caves?"

"Yeah but not in caves, just around Atlantis - Radek wanted to call it some Czech word...pvodetja...or something which, well, _sucked _obviously so we settled on spelunking."

"Very diplomatic of you."

"Yes, anyway in the unexplored sections of Atlantis we found a bunch of old data, stories mostly, like kid's tales and I copied them to this drive which I have been reading in my spare time."

"And these Dr. Seuss books are somehow going to help you locate the ship of the replicators?"

Rodney still looked happy. "Oh, I have no idea."

Sheppard stopped him in the middle of a busy corridor. "Rodney, did you just take me through one of those meandering trips through your mind just to arrive here? Where it's now clear that I, and apparently _you_, don't actually know anything more specific than you did when you started talking?"

"Well, I thought you'd appreciate the thought process behind it." McKay fingered his tiny metal and plastic store of precious ones and zeros. "This could be important."

Secretly Sheppard had delighted in every syllable, only now he was out of time. "Granted. Okay one last question before I go..." and he was dying to ask it actually "What does your toy Iratus bug have to do with any of this?"

"It's a brilliantly designed _robot_, not a toy."

With much patience from the sane to the not-so-much "Same question, Rodney."

"Well, if we find the ship which I suspect does in fact exist - we'll need a spy won't we?"

"Won't the Replicators just squish it? I know I would."

"Of course not. They'll think it's one of theirs, like a child. They'll hug it a squeeze it and call it George."

"Have you been watching your Bugs Bunny DVD's again?"

"A mind as active as mine must have play."

It was true enough. McKay the brilliant doctor was back and Rodney the insatiably curious child still tagged along. He even looked young. Beckett had explained it as a result of the Gobi-Prime Giant Goliath bug egg-goo that had encased Rodney during his nine thousand year give-or-take sleep, organically providing the same protoplasmic and electro-chemical preservative properties that Atlantis's stasis fields brought about by artificial means. Sheppard had only half listened to the doctor's long-winded medical lingo but the end being Rodney appeared not to have aged while they had all acquired new wrinkles and sags, although Rodney had gone through a lot to gain that impish, wrinkle free expression. Sheppard's not sure he would trade places.

"What have you really learned from your readings – about possible Replicator ships that possibly might exist out there somewhere which possibly have energy sources for their replicating needs?"

"They're not all children's stories, some of the data is encrypted and mixed in with all the rest of the stuff...schematics of some of the towers that are still too damaged to use because of the flood waters, procedures of swapping out plumbing pipes, etc but there is one file I've been trying to open and so far it's defeated me and before you get that look – yes I _will_ figure it out."

"I have no doubt. In the meantime we have a mission tomorrow." Sheppard threw an arm around Rodney's shoulders and began steering him in the direction of the infirmary. "Why don't we go talk to Carson and see if he'll clear you for it?" Other duties could wait.

"Really?" McKay's whole expression altered from frustration at himself and his slowness in deciphering the ancient data over to cautious excitement. "This soon? You think he will?"

"Doesn't hurt to ask."

XXX

Ronan and Teyla were surprised but pleased to see their scientist colleague arrive in the Gate room fully decked out and equipped for an off-world mission. "I hope these people have accommodations other than mud huts." McKay commented.

Teyla smiled, his complaints now more a balm of familiarity rather than an irritant. "I have never met these particular souls but our leader assures me they are peaceable and have had a good crop yield this year. SGC are anxious for Atlantis to become self-sustaining in regards to food and I believe these people may become long-term partners towards that goal."

"I hope they grow coffee beans." Rodney muttered.

Sheppard, who would usually be the first to step through the Gate, this time allowed Ronan to take point. Although the MALP had sent back images and data indicating no danger on the other side, still it was good to be cautious. Teyla was next and Sheppard turned to Rodney. "Ready?"

Rodney was standing only feet from the shimmering water-like portal of the Stargate, staring at it - almost transfixed by it.

"Rodney?"

But McKay didn't move. His P-90 was steady in his hands, the Safety on, his eyes staring unmoving, unblinking, at the beautiful, shifting "watery" image; the sub-space, out-of-time "hole" that would ferry them almost instantaneously to another planet. Once they stepped through, there was no going back until they reached the other side. It was a matter of multi-billionths of a second, an almost immeasurable instant in time, the worm-hole "effect" being, as McKay had once explained, simply an invention of the mind due to its inability to cope with the idea that such a distance of travel could occur without any time actually transpiring.

Rodney did not move toward the Gate.

Sheppard frowned at his team member's frozen expression. Where a moment before expectation of discovery had rested, fear now lived in those blue eyes. McKay's mouth opened, just a thin line and Sheppard heard him mumble two words...

"...worm hole."

Sheppard stepped over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Rodney? You okay?"

The touch jerked the scientist from whatever place his mind had slipped and he turned his wide eyes on his colonel. "That's a worm hole." He whispered, as though never having seen one before in his life.

_Oh shit._ Sheppard suddenly understood what the problem was. The last time McKay had stepped, or rather dove, into a worm-hole it had catapulted him back in time leaving him to nearly die on a miserable planet at the ass end of the Pegasus galaxy.

Rodney was afraid. Sheppard could read it in those staring, terrified eyes and he could imagine the thoughts rushing in on his friend; suppose something goes wrong? Suppose it happens again, right now, right there in the Gate room?

"Rodney. We'll be right there with you."

But McKay didn't move. He swallowed hard. "This is just negotiating for rice and wheat and stuff – right? I mean you don't need the biggest brain in two galaxies to do that. This isn't, I mean I don't think...r-right?"

Sheppard was quick to reassure. "Hey, it's fine. We can handle this one." If Mckay couldn't make it out of the gate, Sheppard wasn't about to push him. They had no idea how scarred his mind might be after all those years stuck alone on a god-forsaken world. Pushing right now could be the worst of options. "We're good. You can take the next one, okay? - its fine."

Rodney nodded and repeated Sheppard's words almost as though he were trying to convince himself he was perfectly okay. "I'll take the next one. Don't think I'll be much use..." He backed up, letting his weapon drop to his side. "I think I should...I think I oughta' sit this one out. Stuff to do...a-at the lab and...work."

McKay wasn't actually back in the labs yet, not for any real work, as Sheppard and everyone else knew; the main reason being that Zelenka was now head of the Sciences department and Weir hadn't yet decided what to do about Rodney's on-going status within Atlantis.

But Sheppard needed to get going and join his team. This was no time for a pep talk but he also didn't want to stress his friend any more than necessary. This could be a bad idea, or bad timing, whatever, but maybe he shouldn't have pushed Carson into releasing Rodney back onto the team this soon? Maybe McKay needed more time to convalesce, get his mind back in form and not just his body?

Sheppard decided it was best to make it easy on him, and gave him an out. "You're right. Look, take it easy and I'll catch up with you after we get back. We'll grab a beer and you can fill me in."

Rodney just nodded and turned away, walking quickly in the direction of weapons/equipment storage.

Sheppard slipped through the Gate to join his team.

XXX

"He froze." Sheppard said to Weir. "He couldn't do it. He couldn't walk through the Gate."

Weir bit her lip, and took a settling breath. "Poor Rodney. He went through a lot I...I guess I hoped he'd bounce back from it, be our normal Rodney again."

"We all did, and maybe he _will_ be all right. I don't want to jump the gun on this and assume he's unfit for the team. He probably just needs a little time. The last time he went through a worm-hole things didn't turn out so well."

"Well I can certainly understand his hesitation." Weir agreed, leaning forward on her elbows and clasping her hands together speculatively. "Carson says he's done all he can for him physically. Says he's okay in that respect, but the question is what do we do other than keep sending Rodney to our psychologist? Any ideas?"

Sheppard scratched his head. "No, not yet - I don't know just...give him some time I guess. Anyway, he's doing some research of his own on that data he found. I'm sure he'll bring it to you once he's figured out if it's worth spending any more time on."

"What does he speculate it might be?"

Only McKay would come up with a theory of a mobile space Replicator factory - an idea that they all, even Sam Carter, somehow missed. "He's got an interesting idea of how the Replicators get their material for making more Replicators, but I'd rather he explained it to you."

"Can't you give me the shortened version?"

Sheppard smiled. Yes, McKay would take thirty minutes to explain in painful detail basically "_Hey – I think the Replicators are making more of themselves on a ship somewhere using a really cool natural singularity!" _

"He thinks if we can locate the ship he _thinks_ exists, then he _thinks_ we can destroy their factory and basically bring a permanent end to the Replicators."

"Well, I'm all for that. That'll bring three of our mortal enemies down to two and for the Pegasus galaxy that would be a pretty good score." They shared a brief, if subdued laugh over that one and she asked "But that's a tall order, even if he's right. Are you sure he can handle it – I mean he's just doing _research, and _I don't want to hurt Rodney but Zelenka's lead scientist now, do you think Rodney will be able to-"

"- to cope with no longer being the most important man in the Pegasus galaxy?"

"Something like that."

"For now, he seems okay and anyway Beckett doesn't want him over-exerting himself. But eventually..."

Weir nodded. Eventually she would need to find something more important for Rodney to do. His was a mind not made to be idle and research was a thing the man could do in his sleep with half a brain tied behind him. It did not contain enough challenge and since he was currently too nervous to step through the Gate, he would soon be growing restless. "I'll see what I can do."

Sheppard worked his way slowly through Atlantis's organically designed corridors. There were almost no sharp edges here, everything had been made to curve and dip and rise with gentle lines and soft corners. It was one of things that made Earth's cities seem box-like and ugly whenever he returned to Earth, which was as few times as he could get away with, even for the remnant family ties that still existed for him.

The people in Atlantis seemed far more real to him now than those at home ever did. Here he could fly the coolest ships ever built, explore new planets, meet new people, _most_ of whom did not turn around and try to slaughter them in a new and interesting fashion, and spend his leisure hours with some of the smartest Earth-bred people that ever lived, not to mention the most intriguing.

Like Rodney McKay. Sheppard was pretty damn sure that the off-the-scale intelligence of the man Mother Nature herself had put together with loving hands and then, laughing her ass off, tossed in an insane assortment of quirks just to fuck with them good and proper. Even so, starting with Weir the people of Atlantis had taken McKay into their embrace and despite his scratchy surface and social squirming, they'd come to appreciate the man on a deeper level than Sheppard thought most others ever had done, or even bothered trying. Once you got passed the ingrained ego and sarcasm, the parts of McKay that the man kept mostly hidden were a whole set of unexpected treats and Sheppard felt some satisfaction in that he had given himself sufficient time to get to know them. Rodney had become so integral to his psyche he could hardly imagine his life without McKay somewhere in it.

In the beginning spending time with Rodney had been unavoidable really - the situations that faced them in Atlantis had forced them together out of dire necessity. And then over the weeks and months that followed, he had come to know much more about the scientist aide from his ability to think them out of one bad-assed problem after another - plus the brainiac and his team had kept the city functioning on a respectable level, despite the re-occurring power shortages. McKay had become the indispensible man. And through it all somehow or other Rodney had become his best friend.

But they had all come to heavily rely on McKay for so much. Sheppard often saw the stress it put the scientist under, especially that it forced Rodney to deal with a host of other specialists pretty well during every hour of his day, and even more so in a crisis. Losing Rodney for those three years had been a huge blow in resources.

But to Sheppard it had merely hurt for a very long time. "Hey Rodney, I spoke to Weir and she seems to like your idea of a Replicator ship-a-ma-jig."

The lab had three people in it: Radek Zelenka, now Atlantis's Chief Scientific Advisor, one other lab tech doing something or other with a chunk of what looked like ancient tech', and Rodney off in his own little corner, reading from his lap-top. Every-so-often Zelenka would throw McKay a nervous look and Sheppard sympathised with the little Czech's nerves at having Rodney around to constantly remind him that it had been his experiment that had sent Rodney on the wildest and most dangerous ride of his life. After all people tended to resent that sort of thing. But thus far Rodney seemed not to care about any of that. In fact he seemed to not be paying any attention to the Radek at all.

Sheppard sidled up to his miraculously alive-again friend, glad that he could do so again. Glad that he could see Rodney pretty much whenever he wanted to.

When McKay saw him approach he slammed the laptop shut but not before Sheppard caught a glimpse of a portrait of a woman with a head of wavy blonde hair and blue eyes smiling stiffly into the camera. It had to be none other than Rodney's dead sister. Not a conversation he ought to open with. "Uh, still reading the Dr. Seuss books?"

McKay threw him a look that said the joke was already old. "They're a little more than Doctor Seuss stories, but to answer your question – yes."

McKay was in full McKay mode, dark, focused, irritated by the simplest of interruptions. But damn if Sheppard was going to leave and miss out on the nostalgia. "Anything good?"

Rodney pushed the laptop away, but there was something in the gesture besides exasperation. There were other things on his mind. "What if I can't do it anymore?" He asked softly, for Sheppard's ears only.

Sheppard straightened from his slouch at the unexpected change in subject. "You mean the Gate?"

"Of _course_ I mean the Gate." Rodney looked up at him and gone was any attempt to hide the weakness. Instead his eyes were wide open, mutely seeking out Sheppard's help. "What in the hell am I going to do if I can't go through our Gate – or any worm-hole..._ever?"_

Sheppard did not know how to answer. He knew for all his bitching while on an off-world mission McKay loved the challenge and sheer fun of brandishing a P-90 – and he had become a hell of a good shot before he's disappeared. Plus the added bonus of exploring ruins and tinkering with any tech' they found there. Rodney may have graduated the best astrophysicist Earths' universities had ever turned out, but at heart he was just a kid playing Doctor Livingston. Naturally, the scientist less enjoyed the meet-and-greets Weir often sent them on to negotiate for food or other supplies, but still McKay usually passed the time entertaining himself with snide comments to the team about the _"primitives' technological equivalence to Gilligan's Island."_ though happily tasting the offered tidbits of their unique cuisine.

McKay loved his lab work, but the off-world missions, or field work of any sort, for him had become a much welcomed break from routine. Sometimes a highly dangerous break from routine but fortunately those types of off-world encounters didn't occur that often.

Sheppard wished he could come up with some slightly less lame advice. "Look, Rodney, you're just going through a bad patch. Hell - you just got _back_. Give yourself some time."

Rodney, being Rodney, did not appear the least bit reassured. "How_ much_ time before I know I'm useless to the team?" He gathered up his laptop and slid off the stool. Sheppard often wondered why scientific labs had to have such high tables that the only chairs available to the researchers were high stools with hard seats. How did these people escape the inevitable hemorrhoids?

Sheppard walked with him. "Where are you going? Maybe we should go see Beckett? This could be a virus."

McKay stopped and looked at him like he was doing exactly what he was doing – grasping at straws. "A _virus?_ Give me a break. And how is Beckett's medical voo-doo going to cure_ my_ terror of ending up on some killer planet fifty-thousand lights years away because of some freak worm-hole malfunction, _which_ I may remind you, is not out of the realm of possibility for any one of us, Zelenka's insane experiments aside. Do you know how many risks we already take every time we step through the Gate - the _dozens_ of things that could go wrong at any given second?

"A small power fluctuation or a power outage while we're in the stream would reduce us to subatomic particles at _best_. Or how about this - someone shutting down the Gate, or raising a shield on the other side because they didn't know we were coming when we thought they _did_. We don't yet know half of everything we should know about how the damn thing works but we still walk through it as though it were just any _doorway_. Hell - if we _did_ know everything we _should_ know, I wouldn't have been left to rot on that horrible planet and be in the situation I'm in now – too goddamn scared to make the attempt."

Rodney suddenly stopped speaking, realising what he'd just said. Then in a whisper as though he was just coming to grips with it himself "I'm too fucking scared, John, I just...I just don't think I can do it anymore." Sheppard didn't try to stop McKay as he walked quickly away, probably embarrassed by his outburst and what he no doubt perceived as cowardice.

There was one thing Sheppard knew; the terrible time he had endured on that planet had changed Rodney in one fundamental way: risks never used to deter him.

XXX

He was not left long to contemplate what to do about it because McKay sought him out several hours later in Weir's office (a place he had found himself spending a lot of time in, first during Rodney's disappearance and now, after his return), his laptop in his hands. As he entered the office he was already in the middle of a conversation with himself "...holy crap, McKay, you found it. You found it when no one else could. I _knew_ I was right."

He stopped and, oblivious to that fact he had just walked all over Elizabeth and Sheppard's conversation, proudly announced "I found the data I was looking for."

Weir stifled an indulgent smile one might lend a gifted but hyper-active child, less she distract Rodney from his train of thought. "Oh yes?"

"_Yes."_ Mckay said with a grin on his face, clearly pleased as punch with his mental prowess. Turning the display to her so she could see the data in Ancient script flowing down its screen like water, he waited with barely contained patience, as though she could read and absorb it as fast as he could.

She could read Ancient very well of course, and she was fast, but not _that _fast.

Rodney explained "I was right - it _is_ a ship. The Replicators used a ship to house a natural singularity – this was of course after the Ancients had decided to deactivate them because they thought they were becoming unstable and therefore dangerous. And they were right, they _were_ becoming unstable but that's because they were becoming sentient, and like a lot of sentient races – intent on self-preservation and therefore dangerous – but that's beside the point I'm making because by then it was too late, for the Ancients I mean, to deactivate them - the Replicators specifically.

"They had achieved consciousness and self-awareness, the Replicators not the Ancients, and they had already harnessed their own source of power to propagate their...well, _species _for lack of a better term, but it's there and it probably still exists."

_O-o-o-kay -_ "_What_ probably still exists" Weir asked, trying to get her head around everything Rodney was saying.

"The ship...the Replicator ship." Rodney pointed to his laptop. "It's there in the data, written like a story, well, more of a parable actually but like a warning to anyone else who would try and create a species as servants, but slavery never lasts – rebellion is almost inevitable - you'd think if anyone would have figured that out the _Ancients_ would have – don't you? Anyway, we should start scanning for a ship with a quantum energy signature to the tune of about – oh say – ten _million_ Atlantis suns." Rodney took a much needed breath and waited, looking at her expectantly.

Weir bit her lip. "Written like a parable?"

"I know what you're thinking and yes it is written like a parable but so was the story of Atlantis and once upon a time nobody believed that either. This ship is real and that's why the Replicator's power source has never been located on their home world or on any planet or even on the ships they use in battle. Because no one knew it existed, not even the Ancients although they must have _suspected _it existed since they couldn't destroy the Replicators no matter how hard they tried - and the Replicators would certainly never have given it up – the ship I mean."

Weir tried to gather her thoughts. Rodney certainly sounded convinced. "How do you know for sure that this _isn't _a parable?"

"For absolutely sure, I don't, but if it's just a story why did the Ancients hide it? Maybe they were embarrassed at their own royal screw-up but the point is it's worth checking out isn't it? What if I'm right and we get a chance to destroy the power - the very _life_-source of the Replicators? That's worth the scanning hours at least - the over-time to...er...Charles?"

"Chuck." She corrected him for the 'nth time.

"Whatever." McKay shook his head at the triviality of the wasted mental effort in recalling someone's name at a time as important as this moment and his discovery. "After what they did to Atlantis, I'd like to see some pay-back." He said plainly, "Don't you?"

Weir looked a John, one eyebrow on the rise, looking for his input.

"I can't speak for everyone but I'd love the opportunity to bust some Replicator chops." He said.

McKay looked ecstatic and Weir held up a hand. "I'd love to see that, too, but let's tread cautiously here. Scanning for Replicator's means it would be letting them _know_ we are. If this ship is, as you believe, out there won't they detect the scans and set their sights on Atlantis?"

"Probably but all I need to do in the meantime is figure out a way to shut down their singularity and destroy the ship - the Replicators will be history." McKay said, his eyes shining at the thought of doing some real work. Some really _cool_ work.

Much bemused "Is_ that_ all?" Weir asked, nervous of McKay's blue, overly-bright eyes and hyper-tense body. He was almost vibrating.

Sheppard watched Rodney, too, seeing shades of the old McKay and liking it. "I think it's at least worth the risk." He said to Elizabeth.

But when it came to Sheppard's softer side for McKay, Weir had his number. "Okay, John, very well, but this will be your baby along-side Rodney." She held up a hand before Rodney could protest. "I know you don't need a babysitter, Rodney, so please forgive my over-protectiveness. We did, after all, _just_ get you back." Sheppard had enough experience with McKay on a tear than anyone, and after Doranda - that felt so _long_ ago now - he wouldn't dare let Rodney get away from him, metaphorically or physically, ever again. Sheppard would be her safety valve, Weir decided, and it brought some ease to her misgivings of allowing McKay to run with such an idea so soon, while he was still getting his feet wet.

_Re_-wet.

Weir explained to Rodney; outrage in his eyes at the idea of being watched every minute like an invalid "I just want to make sure that you get _reasonable_ rest. I know how you are when you get an idea in your head." She let the affection show in her face. It wasn't that hard. "I just don't want to see you killing yourself over this." Which he would, foregoing proper sleep or food until he was walking the ragged edge of collapse, forcing them to confine him to a week in the infirmary until he no longer resembled a starving, hyperactive, baggy-eyed ghost.

She tried to settle the twist in her gut and finally waved a hand at them both. "So go, both of you. Get out of here and go do what you do best."

XXX

Part 2 soon.


	2. Chapter 2

**Someone...Somewhere... Part 2**

_Improbable geek speak bull$hit in here._

**SGASGASGASGASGASGASGA**

"Wind!"

It was McKay's first word to Sheppard in two days, the scientist rushing up to him in the mess hall, a paper or two trailing behind him in his flurried wake. McKay had spent nearly forty-eight hours huddled in front of his laptop and scribbling things in his notes and he looked the part of the over-worked, sleep deprived, slightly bugged-eyed genius.

Sheppard noted the paper trail and marveled at his astrophysicist friend who, living in a city built by the genius Ancients, and who spent most of his day in a lab surrounded by a dozen of the most powerful computers known to man, still worked out most of his calculations using good old fashioned paper and pen. Sheppard downed the last swallow of his tea and made a face. He had never been a tea drinker.

But tea today had been on the menu instead of coffee as it been rationed since Weir decided that using the ZPM - and hence the Stargate - to ship luxuries from Earth was a shameful waste of its precious, limited power. So until the Daedulus made its next run from Earth bringing along pounds of the coveted black beans, locally grown tea was the only thing on the beverage menu. "Wi-what?" Sheppard asked, amused as McKay gathered up the wayward papers.

"It's called Wind." McKay said, attempting to blink the lack of sleep from his eyes. "I mean the English equivalent of the Ancient word if you want to get technical. But the point is I found the ship - the Replicator ship. It's basically Atlantis's sister space-city and it's still out there."

Sheppard stood and took his friend's elbow, steering McKay away from the ears of everyone else. This was supposed to be sort of a secret project. "How about you explain the details I know you've already figured out on the way to Weir's office?"

"Huh? Yeah, okay, sure."

XXX

"Are you sure about this Rodney?" Weir studied the laptop notes McKay had thrust under her nose after barging into her office with Sheppard in tow. Another city, this one in space somewhere between the stars, more powerful than anything the Ancients had come up with, more deadly, still out there, still a menace. Pegasus never ceased coming up with new and more frightening odds to pitch their way.

"Of _course_ I'm sure. It uses fanciful speech but it's clearly a description of another city, a twin to this one, occupied by the - and I quote – "the wayward children of Atlantis who forsook their parents, sailed the Wind and warred against them." It goes on and on of course but you get the idea. If this city ship is still out there and there's nothing to indicate that it _isn't_, it's just a matter of time before the Replicators decide on another assault on Atlantis. So we need to locate this ship first and destroy it before they decide to come after us again."

"First strike." Sheppard clarified for her. "It'd be nice to be the ones on the offensive for a change."

Weir pursed her lips. "My question is _will_ they – come after us?" She asked McKay pointedly. "You're sure this city is out there but how do we know there are any Replicators occupying it?" She studied her most valuable thinker under her command. McKay was brilliant but he was just back after a nine thousand year death-sleep and not necessarily entirely himself. And he was a bit adrift in his duties at the moment having no defined position in Atlantis until she was sure he was up to the pressure. Was he inventing a crisis, or hoping for one, in order to solve it? "It's been ten thousand years since Atlantis itself was occupied by the Ancients, how do we know the Replicators still occupy their space city?" _If it exists._

Rodney tried to keep the impatience out of his voice at his leader's sometimes slower uptake. "They _have_ to be. We've fought the Replicators as recently as – what – four years ago? There were hundreds of them, and probably thousands more that we never got to see. They never seemed to run out. That energy to rebuild, to create more, had to come from somewhere. If Mariah was an abandoned city, we would have already won the war against them."

Weir shook her head a little. "Uh excuse me – _Mariah_?"

McKay lifted his chin a bit, ready to defend his answer. "Well, it's better than the ancient word for it - calling it Wind or Windy-City isn't it? Anyway we've already got one of those."

Weir looked to Sheppard to clear things up for her offering a small indulgent smile. "Umm...Clint Eastwood musical, western, wagons...I'll explain later."

Weir sat back and crossed her arms. "I appreciate your enthusiasm and the logic in striking first _if _we are in fact in danger. But so far the scans dedicated to locating this mystery city have turned up nothing."

"They will." Rodney said. "I'm sure of it, and I should get started on a method to destroy the city and them before they show themselves and it's too late."

Weir bit her lip, trying to balance her desire to give McKay the support he needed to fit in again and her duty to everyone in Atlantis. Whatever Rodney came up with to fight against the Replicators – if they showed up – would no doubt require resources and power Atlantis may not be able to spare. "I'm going to need evidence that it's out there before I'll sign off on any weapons development." She said.

Rodney bristled. "I'm not making this up. This city exists."

Weir nodded. "I've read the data, Rodney, and I'm inclined to believe you. The question is whether they want to fight or not. So you may do weapons research, and _only _research, until such a time as that evidence makes itself known to us." With misgivings she watched his fallen face. "I'm sorry but that's the best I can do right now."

"What if I can find a way to bring that evidence to you – beyond the ancient data I mean?"

"I would say that depends on how you plan to do that."

"Sheppard and I -" McKay glanced over at Sheppard with hope "can take a hyper-drive Jumper and do a more far-reaching scan of Replicator space. Once we have the evidence that Mariah exists, we'll come back and I can start figuring out how to destroy it." His expression adding _and stop wasting all this time!_

Weir also looked at Sheppard. "You want to take a Jumper to Replicator space? - a ship with minimal weapons?"

"And a _cloak_." Sheppard added encouragingly. "We'll jump in, cloak, do our scans and won't waste a minute getting the hell out of there." It was a good idea. Despite his displaced status and physical constraints – the heavy pain killers he was on for starters - McKay was still full of good ideas. He was still double PhD DoctorMcKay - _genius_.

Sheppard could see Weir capitulating. A chance to find out if the Replicators were regrouping or giving up the fight was an opportunity they really ought not to miss. Weir knew it too. "Fine," She said. "But take Ronan too and no engaging the Replicators in_ any_ way, and for God's sake don't stay there a second longer than you have to." She tried to settle her nerves. It was a good idea but it was also extremely dangerous. "When are you leaving?"

McKay bounced on his toes and looked at Sheppard "Right now good for you?"

XXX

"What's that?" Sheppard noticed McKay had brought a small duffel bag along with his usual tack' vest, P-90 and equipment for their unusual three-person-only mission. Ronan was already seated in the aft part of the Jumper but took his usual seat behind the co-pilot once McKay and Sheppard were on board and stowing their gear.

"It's the Iratus robot."

Sheppard figured as much. _Don't engage the enemy in any way._ Weir had been explicit in her orders. "And you're expecting to use it?" _I'm an idiot, of course he is._

McKay answered his determination to be bold as resolute as Weir's warning to be cautious "Doesn't hurt to be ready in case we get a chance, does it?"

Sheppard felt the bells of doom clanging around in his head. But Rodney was right about one thing, they needed to know if this other city-ship was real. If the Replicators had been spending the last year regrouping, they were in for one hell of a fight. Any advantage was worth the risk.

Ronan listened to the exchange quietly though keeping his eyes on McKay without trying to look like he was keeping his eyes on him, a behavior than Sheppard recognised as new, at least new since Rodney had been brought back from a state of the virtually dead.

Rodney noticed the large man glancing his way but decided not to make a fuss about all the fuss, simply nodding at his Satedan colleague, and then occupied himself with checking the little bug robots internal connections and parts. His hands felt fine with Beckett's cocktail of good drugs coursing through his system. And they were not going through the Gate, a bonus since he still felt a sickeningly cold fear every time he thought about it.

Sheppard hadn't been able to keep his eyes much off McKay either, since he'd been brought back from the dead, and having him beside him in the Jumper was a comforting thing. McKay fussed with his little robot thing muttering under his breath.

"Eight hyperspace hours to your Windy city." Sheppard announced, just because he noticed McKay noticing his worried and watchful eyes and it was something to say to distract them from the awkwardness they both felt about it.

"It's _Mariah_." McKay corrected him, with only a modicum of patience. "Wind was a stupid name. Don't forget to cloak the second we're out of hyperspace."

"Yeah, yeah."

XXX

"Okay, we're cloaked." Sheppard set the autopilot control and swivelled in his seat to watch McKay finish whatever he was finishing on his I-pad. "Now what? Do we scan?"

"No need." McKay looked up at him with a characteristic smile of supreme confidence. "Now we send out our little bird."

Sheppard set his jaw, his own stubbornness every bit as thick as McKay's. "I suppose there's no point in me reminding you that Weir specifically ordered no engagement of the enemy."

"We can't engage or not engage if we don't even know they're here, can we?"

Sheppard hated it when Rodney used reason and logic.

Ronan asked "Why this area anyway? How do you know if this is the right spot?"

McKay did not look up from his busy fingers. "Because this area of space is exactly half way between the Replicator home world and us. This is where I'd put my most important and probably cloaked city space ship if I was a Replicator looking to re-take Atlantis."

"_If_ they're looking to retake Atlantis, you mean." Sheppard looked at McKay's little Iratus robot bug. "Let's say I decide to contravene Weir's order..." (which was perfectly within his rights to do during a combat situation when he was the only leader in sight but which situ' presently did not quite meet the criteria), "how is your little friend there going to help us find that out?" The robot looked astonishingly real, so much so that it creeped him out a bit as he touched the right side of his neck.

McKay's fingers rested. "Because I am inputting a new command into its brain to tell it to home in on any nanite energy signature in the vicinity_ or_ any energy signal big enough to indicate, say, a cloaked ship, where-by it will then fly to that signature thereby demonstrating that I'm right."

"It can move through space?" Ronan asked dubiously.

McKay nodded. "Yes, Mister Big Doubter. Before we left Atlantis I outfitted it with a micro ion-drive. It'll be slow but it'll work."

That must have taken the scientist most of the previous two nights, Sheppard thought. Hence the McKay haven't-gotten-any-sleep-for-two-days look.

Sheppard was already trying to figure out how to explain to Weir why they engaged the Replicators against her orders and so almost died in the process. But then if they got back intact enough to actually apologise, then that would mean that McKay's insane Replicator finding mission will have been a success. "What happens if the Replicator ship is here and they detect the Iratus-bot buzzing around their collective heads?"

"I'm betting they'll recognise it as one of their own and not destroy it, at least not right away, it _is_ mechanical though not actually nanite in construction. There's a good chance they won't automatically assume it is what it is - a very clever spy. They'll probably bring it into their hold and we'll get a bot's-eye view of the inside of Mariah itself." McKay turned it around so the bug's collection of tiny eyes was visible. The proud scientist pointed to the center of the bulbous orbs. "Micro camera too."

Sheppard studied the little 'bot intently and McKay surreptitiously. The scientist seemed his old self. It was both gratifying and frightening. Old McKay was the one that got himself, and occasionally _them_, into a lot trouble on more than one occasion but he was also their most valuable idea man. McKay was right about one thing - the chance to learn if another Replicator city was really out here was too good to pass up. "Okay, Rodney, we'll go with your robot idea, but at the first sign of trouble, we're outta' here."

No one argued.

XXX

McKay loaded the little Iratus-bot into the cargo area and closed the dividing door, sealing them safely away from the vacuum of space. Sheppard hit the emergency aft compartment decompression command and they all heard the air rush out of the rear area of the Jumper, taking the little bug into space with it.

Immediately the images from the tiny cameras sent back the 'bot's eye-view of its surroundings which were at the moment no different from what they could see for themselves out their forward view-screen: the blackness of space dotted with stars so distant and faint they appeared as unreal pin-pricks of light against a black canvas. Mere holes in the weave.

As Rodney studied his I-pad and tracked the tiny 'bot, they were astonished to see the thing shudder and immediately set a course, taking a straight and unwavering path directly away from them at an oblique down angle. Even Rodney sounded surprised. "Um, looks like it already found something."

Sheppard manoeuvred the Jumper so they were looking roughly in the same direction as the robot's course, the 'bot so tiny now that their mere human eyes could not pick it out.

But at what Sheppard guessed as about two hundred-thousand miles, a brilliant light appeared as a door lowered, a maw as large as an entire airline hangar, sending out a brilliant ray of artificial light. Previously un-noticed against the backdrop of space, they now realised that a large looming irregular shaped..._something_ was blocking out the stars below them. There was no near-by star here to illuminate what appeared to be a totally smooth, featureless surface. Before what seemed to have been merely a starless region of space dust was in fact a virtually invisible but gargantuan object. Sheppard felt a chill of fear in his gut. Rodney had said city._ City_, not asteroid, or whatever the thing was.

"Rodney...what are we looking at?" Sheppard punched up a closer view using the Jumper's electronic display. On it they watched as the tiny 'bot entered the mouth of the light-emitting aperture like a bee going back to its hive.

The robot's camera now showed an interior view of what appeared to be a city much like Atlantis complete with light, water fountains and high towers, an artificially generated sun from somewhere shone inside its golden rays streaming through magnificently decorated windows the height of a New York skyscraper, illuminating everything as though it were the middle of a sunny day. Faces briefly looked up as the Iratus robot buzzed around the thousand foot ceilings corridors, passing by the robed figures of Replicator people, finally coming to rest on a shelf inside a brightly glowing alcove, one of hundreds.

Invading fingers soon found and grappled the little 'bot, examining it up close, their noses distorting into huge masses before the fish-eye lens of the micro-camera. Then sudden and rapid movement as the tiny thing was ferried in hand elsewhere. Minute's later one face in particular appeared in view. A balding head ringed by a fringe of grey hair around the puffy sober face of Oboroth.

Sheppard said "Fuck. Why in the hell won't that son-of-a-bitch _die_?"

They watched in silence as the camera's eye winked out as the brilliant maw closed once more. The feed for the camera ended and once more it seemed that nothing was out there below them but space dust.

"_Crap_..." McKay said under his breath but not so softly that Sheppard missed the note of panic. The scientist had his nose buried in his I-pad, studying figures and inputting others.

Sheppard hated that tiny voice inside him that whispered it was now time to worry because even though McKay and panic went together like fire and gasoline, that tiny voice was usually right. "What?"

"Based on the amount of energy readings I got from that one breach of their cloak and the Jumpers owns scans, this city appears to be..." He looked over at Sheppard, "roughly the size of Britain."

A stunned Sheppard looked at McKay who stared back with his wide baby-blue's. But years of training forced other questions to come to the surface just as forcefully as the shock they had just experienced and Sheppard asked in rapid-fire succession "Is this thing artificial...natural...engines..._weapons_?"

Rodney studied his Iratus-bot scan results. "Um, mass is less than it might seem because it's basically hollow – a kind of Dyson sphere - but hundred of trillions of tons. Artificial light, probably fusion so enough energy to power some sort of hyper-drive engine, and weapons...readings indicate a huge but buffered secondary energy out-put so I'm guessing some sort of focused plasma beam. Basically Atlantis defenses and weapons are outclassed by about a million times." With no typical McKay crowing he looked at Ronan and Sheppard, almost apologetically and said quietly "Um...looks like I was right."

XXX

_Jesus - was he ever right!_ _Was McKay ever goddamn inconveniently as-the-proverbial-rain of fiery hell that was life in the Pegasus galaxy __**right**__._ Those and other words repeated in his head as Sheppard and his returned team finished up Beckett's post-mission exam and then made their way to Weir's office for the debriefing. Right sucked. Right was unfair. But, this time, it was also good. As whole-scale unlucky as it was, at least they now knew the bad news.

"Doctor Weir." Sheppard said in greeting as he swung his backside into a comfortable looking chair around the kidney shaped table. Weir's briefing room. _And now for the __**other**__ bad news._ "Rodney was right." Keep it simple. They were probably shorter on time than he imagined. "The ship exists and it's full of Replicators including our old friend Oboroth." He watched Weir's reaction.

To her credit she kept it under control but then she usually did. She was even cooler during a crisis than he was and she cared about those under her just as much. _A damn fine leader._ Weir flashed Rodney a look of gratitude. "Well, as disappointed as I am with the news that our old foe is alive and well, I think we should be grateful to Rodney for providing us with the confirmation. Now we have to decide what the hell to do about it." She looked around at the faces of her SGA number one team and at Radek Zelenka's pinched features.

The little scientist looked tired and Sheppard recognised the look. He guessed that the Czech had been run ragged since being named Lead Scientific Advisor of Atlantis during McKay's three year involuntary hiatus. Rodney used to look like that, Sheppard suddenly remembered, _all_ the time.

Sheppard thought they'd exhausted all possible methods of Replicator eradication during their _last_ run-in with the killer nanite people. Fresh ideas were needed now. He looked at McKay, and not even out of habit, because Rodney always came up with something.

Weir was looking at Zelenka as well as McKay, although it was clear the floor was open to anyone. "I realise it's a bit premature but any ideas from the science department?"

Zelenka cleared his throat nervously. "I-I may need a bit of time to - er - determine the possibilities." He stuttered.

Elizabeth nodded. "Colonel Sheppard, any idea if the Replicators know we're here?"

He wished it were not so. "I'd say our best bet is to assume so." He did not mention that they had Rodney's little robot spy in their hands and would very soon know where the workmanship had taken place and by who. "We detected them, so they probably detected us." It was not a complete truth but for now close enough. He didn't want Weir furious with McKay right then. When someone was mad at him, Rodney's thinking tended to short-circuit and for the fight he was certain was coming they'd needed his brain firing on all thrusters.

"I see." Weir nodded to Zelenka. "I trust you'll appreciate some help from Doctor McKay?" She asked Zelenka, confident of his answer.

Zelenka did not disappoint and he looked at Rodney with some measure of relief that coming up with brilliance wasn't on his shoulders alone. "I appreciate any help Doctor McKay gave give, yes."

The two scientist left in a hurry and Sheppard made a mental note to check in on them in a few hours, just to see, he told himself, how it was coming. In other less forthcoming corners of his soul he knew it was because he started to feel uncomfortable whenever McKay was out of sight for too long. "Rodney" and "missing" was a scar that was still too tender to ignore.

XXX

"Rodney, you can't possibly be suggesting -"

Sheppard heard Zelenka's distinctive accent and the tension in his tones.

"Yes, I am suggesting. Do you have a better idea?"

"Not yet but we've just begun..."

"We don't have the time to waste sitting around brainstorming one loser idea after another."

Yup, that was Rodney all right. Seems his forced absence hadn't dulled his sharp tongue.

"_How_ do you know how much time we have?" Radek pointed out.

Sheppard stepped into the room. "Rodney means that once the Replicators decide on a course of action, they'll come in force and without any hesitation. We have to be ready for them and soon." Another lie but it seemed to ease Radek's suddenly suspicious question.

Rodney looked up at him and Sheppard moved to the other side of the desk. "What idea has Radek terrified anyway?"

McKay flicked his eyes to Radek, to his computer, to Sheppard's crossed arms and finally to the Colonel's face. "Doranda...Trinity...the Arcturus project."

Sheppard uncrossed his arms. "You mean the deadly disaster that nearly killed us all?"

Rodney shrugged. "Yes."

"I seem to recall that not turning out so well for – oh – three-quarters of a solar system."

"Five-sixths, but yes, it blew up in my face.' He rolled his eyes at Sheppard's look. "Okay, in _all _of our faces but that's the point."

"It _is_?"

"Yes, it is. It didn't work and it _not _working released a burst of energy that took out a sector of space nearly the size of Sol's system, leaving a super-charged black hole-slash-mini universe behind." Rodney shrugged again. It appeared to be a new gesture with him. Sheppard could only assume being left to die on a planet had made McKay into even more of a pessimist than before.

"Oh, as long as it's nothing too _dangerous_. This is your idea to get rid of the Replicators? Destroy another solar system?"

"No, just the Replicator city but before we pull the trigger we'll need it to be in hyper-space among other things and then they're..." He splayed his hands out in a quick outward motion "_poof!_ – history. Nothing left but bad memories."

"Plus a small black-hole-slash-mini universe."

"Theoretically, yes."

Sheppard had to admit, as terrifying as the idea was, it would effectively destroy even the energy source of the Replicator ship. Probably make that area of the galaxy unapproachable for eternity, too. Sheppard mentioned that last to his scientist friend.

"So?"

"So if any of the nanites survive, won't they just become someone else's problem? Whoever else might end up inhabiting this mini-universe?" Sheppard asked reasonably.

McKay nodded. "Sure, but_ not_ ours." Unleashing the Replicator horde on another unsuspecting dimension clearly didn't bother McKay's conscience in the least.

It didn't really bother him much either since Atlantis had inherited enough of her own worries from the Ancient's seemingly endless stream of enemies. But it bothered Sheppard that McKay seemed to completely _un_bothered by it. "Weir is never going to go for this."

McKay looked over at Zelenka. "I don't see that she has much choice since it's all we have." Rodney said, looking at Sheppard again. "The ZedPM is low on power, we have no Asgaard weapon, we're low on drones, the shield is weak due to the _lack_ of ZedPM power, the naquadah generators are on their last legs...shall I go on?"

Sheppard shook his head. He knew all of that of course. Curse the need for power just to live another day. And all Rodney needed to pull off this clearly insane idea was a worm hole. _And just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water... _

And Rodney's final point "We know they'll be coming."

Sheppard crossed his arms again, sighing. Yes, they would be. The nanite-enhanced Iratus bug infestation had failed, their desire to get the city for themselves had failed and since the Replicators appeared to act on feelings of greed or rage just as did humans, they would come if only to topple the last stone standing of Atlantis just to make their point loud and clear. Replicators, for all their desire to ascend, did not stand on principle anymore than the Wraith or the Genii. Revenge would probably do just as well.

"Let's talk to Elizabeth."

XXX

"Are you crazy?" Weir could hardly believe her ears, Sheppard reasoned, since she was already shouting at McKay.

To his credit, Rodney did not back down. "You wanted a solution. Here it is."

Elizabeth narrowed her eyes at Sheppard. "And you agree with this idea. Releasing another Doranda-level explosion, inside a worm-hole, an incredible dangerous, destructive and impossible to control or contain explosion, into space and creating what did you call it a "black-hole-slash-mini-universe"?"

"Theoretically, and large, destructive and uncontrollableis the _point_, Elizabeth." Rodney underlined. "The Replicators could not possible survive it. Nothing could survive it, not even the Zero-Point Field in which it occurs, which is why a black hole would result with a mini universe inside it – again theoretically. If I can generate a burst of energy large enough, it will rip a hole in space and suck the Replicators and their city ship into another universe - created by me - where they will no longer be our problem."

Weir sat down, her feelings on the matter by no means settled. "Rodney, you know what happened last time, you and John almost didn't make it out."

McKay glanced uncomfortably at Sheppard. "I am aware of that but last time I was convinced I could fix the problem on-sight and stayed even when it was clearly hopeless. That won't happen this time. I now_ know_ it can't be controlled ergo we'll make sure to leave plenty of time to get out safely."

"And how do you propose to duplicate the Trinity weapons systems? Those were destroyed too."

"Yes, but again now that I know _how_ it works there's no need to duplicate the complicated weapon because we're not trying to recreate the weapon we're only trying to duplicate the explosion and then some. I can use singular dimensional mass to do that."

Weir shook her head, terrified of his confidence. "_"And then some_ ? How will you blow up this "singular dimensional mass"?"

"Easy - it's Mariah. We have to blow up Mariah or rather its quantum singularity. More precisely I need to cause the singularity to become three dimensional." McKay bounced on his heels. "Very, very rapidly."

"How?" Weir asked, wanting the details. _All the details_ her face seemed to say.

"For this Zelenka's little disaster that nearly killed me comes in handy: if we can wrap a two-dimensional sub-space round the singularity it'll have to expand – evolve - because inside sun-space there is time but no third dimension. But first we have to collapse the containment field the Replicators have erected around the singularity and to do that we need to be on Mariah at the time."

"So just waltz into the Replicator's city, force them into a hyper-stream, wreck destruction, make a new universe _and _get out before you're both dead. Am I missing something?"

Rodney looked at John and Sheppard answered for them both "No, that's pretty much it."

"How do we get the team out before they become part of this inescapable new micro-verse?" Weir asked shaking her head as though to dispel the hundreds of things that could, and probably _would_, go wrong.

This time Rodney didn't have all the answers. "Well, we might be able to beam out in time, i-if we time it right. If we can collapse the support fields for the singularity by remote while both ships are in the hyper-stream, we ought to be able to leave the slip-stream in the Jumper before the singularity becomes three dimensional and the horrible destruction happens."

Weir felt the beginnings of a week-long migraine. "And can you guess how much time we have to plan this little catastrophe?"

Sheppard scratched the back of his head. "Rodney figures about two days before the Replicators show up."

"Two days?" She turned her eyes on Rodney, leveling him with one fire-eyed look. "And you now this how? I thought you said they only _might_ know we're here. You weren't sure you said..._Rodney...?"_

"I might have sent a robot spy into Mariah to check it out. They can probably guess where it came from."

Weir closed her eyes. So they were pretty well already committed to this suicidal insanity. Weir got to her feet, resisting the urge to scold her underling and box his ears. "You sent Atlantean technology to their _ship_?"

Weir was fuming. Sheppard was literally waiting for the smoke to rise from her ears.

"A direct and _deliberate_ violation of my orders." She pointed out, pacing the room, her hands fists; her feet pounding the floor in hard heeled boots.

Sheppard stepped up. "It was my decision." Wrong, yes, but necessary as it turned out. "Look, would you rather have learned of their existence the same minute they showed up at our door? Mariah is a cloaked ship the size of a small _moon_. At least this way we have a few dozen hours to prepare."

Weir sat down again, defeat obvious in every tired line on her face, most of which McKay's schemes had no doubt over the years etched there. "My god... Rodney..."

Rodney looked at Sheppard and knew he had a green light. Weir licked her lips. "If it goes wrong this could make Doranda look like a fire cracker, how sure are you that this will _work_? I want percentages and as a safety measure just how many people should I send back to Earth?"

Bluest eyes blinked rapidly. Was he sure it would work? Well, no. "Um, skeleton crew left behind is probably best." He wiggled the fingers of his left hand in indecision, determination, confidence, excitement – it had come to indicate so many things over the years and it was pure unadulterated McKay. "What percent sure am I that I can pull off the math, devise a way to collapse the singularity containment field? ...one hundred percent." Doranda still weighed heavily on his mind and so for these next few words, degrees of confidence didn't apply. "Do I think something could go wrong, that one or more members of the team might die or that Atlantis will be destroyed? Yes, that's possible." He wished he could have more for her. "Even I can't predict the unpredictable, Elizabeth."

So much could go wrong with so many problems to surmount before the Replicators came knocking. For instance how in the hell would they be able to invade the ship undetected? "I think it should be only me and McKay." Sheppard said. "It's a high risk mission...why risk more people than necessary?"

Rodney played his final card. "There's also the possibility the Replicators have a ZedPM on board for whatever other power needs they have." He looked at them both speculatively. "May as well pilfer what we can while we're there."

Weir wondered if she was doing nothing more than sending two of her best people to their deaths. "Rodney...what about your pain?"

It was becoming an automatic reflex but he glanced down at his hands. "If I thought it was a concern I would have said so." He waved one hand at the annoying details, shooing them away. "I'll make sure Beckett sends me into the fray with enough pain killers' etc-etc...I'll be fine Elizabeth."

Weir closed her eyes. She could use a good, stiff drink. In a rare moment of vulnerability she asked them "Someone tell me that what we're thinking of doing here isn't insane."

If either of them thought so, neither voiced it. Sheppard asked "Are you going to clear this with Command or should we start packing?" If the Replicators showed up in orbit in a ship with the dimensions and weapons of a Death Star, he didn't hold out hope that they could match it with weapons or staying power. It never rains, its shits all over them. "Because I've got a DVD collection I'm kind of attached to."

Weir nodded, reluctantly, wearily. "I'll make the call."

XXX

Part 3 soon.


	3. Chapter 3

**Someone...Somewhere... Part 3**

"How are we going to do this Rodney –_ exactly_ how?" Sheppard asked his scientist friend when they had cleared Weir's office. "Weir wants your full report and my entire plan by tomorrow oh-eight-hundred, so I need _your _plan right about now."

Rodney grabbed his forearm and dragged him off to the lab, feet moving like a cat's as only Rodney McKay's legs could do. "Me and Zelenka worked it out this morning. We need two teams of two; one to get the ZedPM, maybe Ronan and Teyla or Lorne, and the other – you and me – to make the big kaboom. We use the Daedulus to transport us in, ten second interval between beams for each team, and we do our magic. We transport out the same way."

"And how do we avoid being detected?"

"Once we're in we can scan for any Replicators near the Quantum singularity engine, and I'm betting there'll be none or very few –"

"_How_ few?" Sheppard asked with a teeny sarcastic grin. "Weir will ask too."

"I dunno' - hopefully no more than a half dozen or so. They hardly need to guard their own engines when there are no threats about – we don't normally guard ours do we?"

It was true of course. "Okay, how do we incapacitate the Replicators we do find and, assuming we manage to incapacitate them, how much time will you need to accomplish this insane sabotage - and how much time we will actually have before more Replicators show up?"

"Couple of minutes to turn their own engineering against themselves by collapsing the containment field...that's all the time Ronan's team'll need to unhook the ZedPM...it's not that complicated."

"It's not that complicated on Atlantis."

"So okay, if they can't do it in the time given then we leave it behind. That would suck but whatever, as long as we destroy Mariah –right?"

"Agreed. So, assuming we will have the two minutes you think you'll need to make a really bad day for the Replicators, once you hit the big bad button how long before the thing actually blows up and takes out a good percentage of the sector?"

"How long before the kaboom draws the sector _in_ actually and, um...maybe...eleven or twelve seconds?"

"Eleven or twelve..._seconds_?"

"Before there's absolutely no chance to escape? – about that long yes." At Sheppard's blunt stare Rodney could see the colonel needed more convincing so he counted off seconds bending his fingers down one at a time in front of John's face. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight - look, John, I know it doesn't_ seem_ like enough time but as long as the Daedulus is ready for our signal to beam out and as long as we don't hang around and shoot the breeze, twelve seconds is plenty to transport both teams out, blow the Death Star _and_ leave the Evil Empire well behind us. I promise as long as we don't really screw up this'll _work_."

_As long as we don't screw up. _Sheppard crossed his arms, knowing he ought to trust Rodney, and he did trust him, with reservations as to how suicidal this whole thing sounded. "Well then I guess here's to not _really_ screwing up."

XXX

"Look Elizabeth, Mariah is only twenty-four hours out. It's not like we have a choice." Sheppard explained. _Unless someone else has come up with a far simpler and much less dangerous plan._

Weir pursed worried lips and Sheppard noted the lines around her eyes. Atlantis, for all its beauty and wonder, had aged them all. Not that she was any less beautiful. Seasoned was the word. For himself _baked_ suited best, at least that how he felt. He _was_ older and he could not help resenting it. Each year he noticed new creaks in his joints that had not been there before. Each year he felt himself growing more cautious as, despite his best efforts to protect the people of this city, the dead had piled up around him.

Rodney they had lost for over three years yet, incredibly, the man had come back from that horror with his faculties intact, his vigor for exploration just as infectious as ever, and except for some pain that was being well managed with medication, his body un-aged. Rodney was still in the physical form of a man of just above thirty or so while the rest of them had reached forty years or beyond. Zelenka was nearly all grey now. And he tried not to think about the few grey hairs he had discovered on his scalp that very morning.

Weir sat back and fiddled with the collections of pens and pencils in their cup-holder. "What about Rodney? Do you think this idea of his is doable or a little...too far reaching, even for him?"

Sheppard smiled wryly. "You mean do I think he's okay upstairs – is he still _all there_? I don't think there's any doubt in _his_ mind about his_ mind _or the plan." Memories of Doranda danced around his consciousness. Incredible how long ago and far away that felt now. "Besides, Rodney knows we might be a little gun shy and he had Zelenka look over all his data. I guess he didn't want there to be any doubt in _our_ minds either." Sheppard looked around at the door, anxious to have the meeting over so he could get the mission underway. "So unless there's anything else...?"

Weir sighed, nodding. "Good luck John and...just...take care of him will you?"

Nodding, he stood up. "You got it." They weren't going to lose Rodney again. No way.

XXX

"The Daedulus is ready to jump." Colonel Caldwell spoke to Elizabeth Weir far off in Atlantis as the Daedulus orbited high above the Lantean planet. Sheppard squinted at the overhead lights as they reflected off the Colonel's head. Not for the first time he noted that Caldwell's hair that had turned all white. Pending a new commander for the Daedulus, Caldwell had been commandeered to fly this mission as a favour to the SGC, but they were all very tired of fighting.

All except for Rodney who retained his zest for life like a teenager. Almost dying tended to do that. Good nutrition had returned Rodney to his pre-ordeal level of health, minus about fifteen pounds of body fat. Sheppard guessed that fighting break-through pain every day would tend to sap anyone's appetite. "Elizabeth, this is Sheppard."

"Colonel, are your teams ready?"

"As ready as we'll ever be." He looked across the bridge at McKay, who had his head stuck in his laptop, recalculating or reconfiguring who-knew-what, not paying attention to the last minute military pep talk.

"Then we'll see you soon."

Glad she had not waxed into anything more emotional, Sheppard nodded though he knew she could not see him. "Will do."

Caldwell ordered the Daedulus into a hyper-space "window" and the war ship jumped into the slip stream of beyond light speed.

XXX

"Okay, we've got three hours to the mission and we need to go over the parameters until we know it forwards, backwards and upside-down."

Rodney kept one ear on Sheppard's voice and one eye on his laptop. He needed to make absolutely sure the Daedulus would be able to scan the Mariah in as much detail as possible. The minute Caldwell's ship dropped out of LT drive, they would need to scan and transport in under a minute before the Daedulus could safely disappear until the moment of rendezvous.

This mission had to go without a hitch and Sheppard knew they were all counting on him to see to that.

"This is essentially Rodney's mission, so he can explain anything to you that I might have overlooked." Around the small table, his team mates waited for Rodney to lift his head and speak.

When he didn't, Sheppard cleared his throat. "Uh, Rodney..."

"Hm?" He lifted his face out of his lap top. "Oh, right - er – as far as I can tell the Mariah has erected no defensive shields so it appears she hasn't detected us. We're good to go."

Sheppard raised his eyebrows. McKay was an excellent scientist but his pre-mission pep talks needed work. Sheppard glanced across the table to Ronan and Teyla, his best fighters. "Okay. Make sure to keep your firing in short, controlled bursts in case of any close encounters. Chances are these replicators have never encountered us so they may have no defenses –yet – against our weapons." Sheppard looked at their faces, all anxious to begin, ready and willing, and he was once again grateful to have his old team was back in action. No one could have asked for better people. "Report to the transporter."

XXX

The ship seemed to materialise around them, and Sheppard had to suck in a breath at the scope of Mariah. It was a space station more than a ship, with high walls showing artistic reliefs, perfectly balanced scenes of nature and machine. Artificial light streamed down from tiny artificial suns overhead. The floors were an all natural shade of blue, like a perfectly calm lake. These Replicators appeared to have a more refined sense of esthetics than their planet-side counterparts.

Even Rodney seemed impressed, not an easy feat. "Wow.' He whispered, and then "Weird."

They appeared to be alone for a moment and Sheppard encouraged his friend to get moving in the direction of the main power source. "Why weird?"

"Replicators are basically machines. Machines have no need to art or colour or even light for that matter. They don't "see" like we do, or sense emotion – not really – so why the chic' decor?"

"They were built by the ancients; maybe they've learned a few things over the millennia."

"Like what – whether they're a Winter or a Spring?" Rodney shook his head while his eyes never left his hand-held tracker, taking them ever closer to the heart of the quantum singularity power source. "Trust me, this part of their nature would have to have been programmed in."

"But these are basically sentient machines Rodney; maybe an appreciation for art came with the original package. Who doesn't like to have something nice to look at?"

His face buried in his scanner "Mmm...I guess."

"How far are we?"

"One corridor."

"Any signs of Replicators?"

"No."

"Well that's good. Let's hope our luck holds."

"How may I help you?"

The feminine voice made them both spin around, on reflex Sheppard raising his P-90 up level with the unexpected female's head, even though John easily recognised the face. As he knew Rodney must, who beside him had turned to stone at seeing the woman.

McKay's voice almost stammered "Oh my God - _Jennie?"_

The woman who could not possibly be Rodney's dead sister smiled warmly at him and then turned to Sheppard, the golden waves of her long hair was pulled back from her face, which face possessed a symmetry all too familiar to him, her features were even with delicate cheekbones and the small, slightly upturned nose of the McKay children complete with the fair, almost translucent skin. The smile on her face remained sweet and unwavering as she spoke again. "I am sorry," she said to Sheppard, "you may not fire your weapon in here. The resulting damage to the surrounding structure could cause an explosive decompression of this section of the city of Wind."

XXX

"Jennie?" McKay said again, his voice squeaking like a mouse's. Sheppard winced. Not unexpectedly at the moment it seemed to be all the man was capable of.

The woman's – the _Replicator's_ Sheppard had to remind himself – spoke with perfect diction and without the Canadian accent he had come to expect. It was the one thing about her that was _unlike_ McKay's sister. That and that fact that this thing wasn't flesh and blood Jennie - or human. Or even _alive_.

"Uh, just the same I'd like to hold onto it." Sheppard said in as fake a friendly a manner as possible. "I signed it out; means I'm responsible to return it and all."

Nodding her acquiescence "Of course." She gestured down the cathedral-like hallway to her left. "If you require refreshment? Rest? Food?...I would be happy to escort you to more agreeable rooms."

Rodney leaned in and whispered in his ear "Um, this must be the original design, the Replicators we've encountered were never this nic–"

"I already figured that out Rodney." Sheppard spoke out of the corner of his mouth but never left off smiling or looking at their lovely but robot-like host. "I get it, just follow the lady and act like we're happy to be here before she alerts the whole goddamn city."

Rodney looked nervously at their attractive host and smiled wanly. "Sure, sure...I'm hungry, I could eat a-" He was about to say_ Wraith_ but thought better of it, "a-a beast...of some sort."

Sheppard smirked at her as though indulging some private joke, whispering back to his team mate "Real smooth McKay."

XXX

"Excuse me, miss?" Sheppard asked as the Replicator Jennie lead them down one breathtaking passage—way after another, "Where are you taking us?"

She did not turn around but her voice was kindness itself. "To our Welcoming Level. There you find all the pleasure and enjoyment you require."

Sheppard glanced over to McKay whose eyes never left the fake Jennie for a moment.

"Uh, you see the thing is we were more interested in getting a tour of your city, like maybe starting with the weapons or, say, the quantum singularity engines." Sheppard suggested, smiling back at her but just the same keeping his index finger near the trigger on his P-90.

"This city does not possess weapons, although it does have a very advanced defense shield, as you should already be aware Colonel Sheppard."

"Uh, I figured as much. So where are we going again?" As 'Jennie' spoke about drink, food, and needed rest, Sheppard drew Rodney aside to whisper. "You're right. These are far and away _not _the normal type Replicators."

McKay, all starry-eyed for his sister's look-alike whispered back "I said it first. Come on, isn't it obvious? These are the _original_ creation of the Ancients; the replicators the Atlanteans first designed, doing what they were programmed to do – that is – serve us,_ us_ being the Ancients' descendants."

"But how do they know we-?"

"We both have the gene in our cells, it's part of our genetic make-up now and they probably detected that when we came aboard which explains how they knew we were here."

It made sense. "Well, we have to get to the quantum engine. Ronan and Teyla are probably already finished grabbing the ZPM."

'Jennie' turned, indicating n ornately carved doorway. "We have arrived. You will find your other friends inside. Please take refreshment and let us know if there is anything else we may provide." She left them.

Sheppard nodded, smiling stiffly and lead the way into a wide room with high ceilings. Another artificial sun beamed down from two hundred feet above them. Here, too the walls were decorated with Fresco's so detailed and beautiful the robed figures appeared to be alive, ready to step out from their place in the walls and into the real world.

To the left along one wall was a long table filled with foods of every variety and carafe's of sparkling water. Rodney spotted a cake the colour of gold and headed toward it but didn't get more than two steps before Sheppard yanked him back with one hand on his arm. "Not now, Rodney."

Sheppard joined Ronan and Teyla, the Athosian looking a bit peeved. "They found us near what our scanner indicated was the ZPM rooms. And then escorted us here and insisted we wait for you." She shifted on her feet. "Although they were most polite about it."

Manners or not, that didn't sound good. "How insistent were they?" Sheppard asked.

"They did not harm us, but once we were discovered they steered us away from the ZPM level and brought us here." She explained.

"Polite Replicators," Ronan added, "weird."

Sheppard nodded. "Well, I'm glad you didn't decide to start blasting your way through them all. I have a feeling they may not be as sheep-like as they appear."

Ronan stood stiffly, arms crossed. "So now what? We still have to blow this thing."

"What?" Rodney, who had remained uncharacteristically quiet during this exchange, piped in. "What do you mean. But we - we don't have to do that now. These are the _original_ Replicators, the servants of the Ancients –right? – I mean they're not going to hurt us – they're like children in a way. All they want to do is be our pals and serve us _cake_."

Ronan snorted.

Not for a minute believing that McKay could be that naive Sheppard said "Sure, until Oboroth gets wind of this "Wind" and turns them into his newest collective." Sheppard reminded him. But McKay was still hurting, still not wholly himself, and the Jennie Replicator was a cruel reminder of that, and that Rodney's only remaining family member had died weeks before he had awakened from his nine thousand year slumber. Irony was a bitch. "We can't take that chance, Rodney. If this city and its occupants end up on the dark side of this war, Atlantis is toast. We blow it now and get on our way just like we planned."

"I agree." Ronan said. "Let's blow 'em up."

McKay scrunched up his face at the Satedan. "Oh, you _would_. You know, there are times when bullets and bombs should be the _alternative_." Then appealing to Sheppard "At least let me take a few hours to get a look at their data-base, think of what we could _learn_. We will never get a chance like this again – the historical knowledge alone -"

"Sorry, Rodney, that'd take too long and I'm already nervous."

True to his natural stubbornness McKay was not to be so quickly dismissed. "Colonel,_ please_, we have to try; let me at least download their data into my Laptop, let me get something –_ anything_."

Sheppard bit his lip. It was always difficult to refuse him when things appeared, for the moment, calm. And it was never more so than now. Rodney was back in their lives and seemingly back to normal, he hated to deny him the chance to be useful - even _more_ useful – now that his status as an expedition member was uncertain. But, as Sheppard and all of them had learned from bitter experience at home and in Pegasus, appearances could be deceiving. "Rodney, I know she looks a lot like your sister, but she's not Jennie. And what worries me is why she does look like her. Haven't you asked yourself that? This could all be part of some manipulation."

"Oh give me a break. I'm not being swayed by the Jennie look-alike. I _know_ she's a Replicator."

Ronan said "Then you know she has to be destroyed."

Teyla interrupted, one quizzical eyebrow on the rise "Excuse me – "Jennie look-alike"?

Sheppard nodded. "You didn't see her but our escort, the one who brought us here, is a dead ringer – if you'll pardon the expression - for Jennie McKay."

Teyla frowned, glancing at McKay with a mixture of sympathy and wariness. "That is...unsettling."

Sheppard nodded. "Exactly."

As though she had heard her name, the door swung open by an invisible hand and the Jennie Replicator entered the room. "May I serve you in some way?"

This time Sheppard didn't smile. "Huh - so I guess listening in is the thing done around here?"

Hands folded and body perfectly poised - "Not at all," 'Jennie' answered. "We simply seek to assist at regular intervals if you should require anything. We are programmed to serve but as this room does not have communication devises I thus entered in order to speak to you directly. Do you wish me to leave?"

Rodney held up a hand. "Um, look I have a question." He pointed one crooked index finger at her face, circling it a bit. "Is that your usual face, I mean your - you know - _normal_ look? 'Cause you kinda' look like someone I know...um..._knew_."

"I took this face in order to welcome you. This female seems to be in your thoughts a great deal. We thought it would please you."

McKay swallowed. "You mean you can read my thoughts – all of our thoughts?"

"No. But on your laptop device you carry in your bag you have stored many two dimensional reproductions of this person. We are able to scan your devices in order to serve you better."

Out of the corner of his eye Sheppard watched Rodney while he kept the majority of his attention on the Replicator. "We'd rather you did not scan any more of our devices if it's all the same to you."

"It is the same to us, yes, Colonel Sheppard. It shall be as you wish."

XXX

Once 'Jennie' had left the room again, Sheppard huddled up with the others. Despite the Replicator's assurances of no listening devices and no ability to read thoughts, he kept his voice at a level that assured only his three team members could hear. "Well, this is unsettling." He remarked. "We need to figure out how to blow this place sky-high and the sooner the better."

Rodney cleared his throat. "Well, maybe I should – Jennie – the Replicator – she might be more willing to show me the quantum engine since she seems to know who the real Jennie was, or at least knows she meant something to me."

Sheppard wasn't crazy about the idea of McKay disappearing for any length of time with a Replicator, whether it looked like it sprang from the McKay clan or not. "We need to stick together, Rodney."

Rodney gave him a level stare. Lips pressed together. "You think I can't be objective because it looks like Jennie? You're wrong."

"That's right. I _don't_ think you can be objective right now." _Plus I'm not willing to see you disappear from my sight again. _But Sheppard knew that uncomfortable time would come sooner or later. Eventually he would have to let go and let Rodney find his own way, his own life again, and there was no guarantee that life would not be in Atlantis, however much Sheppard wanted it to be.

Teyla said to them all though her voice was very gentle whenever she looked Rodney's way. "If the Replicators are so interested in comforting us, why have they not provided me with a Replicator of Kenahn', or Ronan with one of his wife or John his father?"

Sheppard nodded. "Good point." He looked at Rodney. "Sorry, Rodney, but no one goes off alone until we're sure what we're dealing with here." He looked around the room. What appeared to be a small interface was set into the wall, blending is so as to go almost unnoticed. It, too, was elaborately decorated. "Meanwhile see what you can find out with that." He nodded toward it.

Rodney pulled out his laptop and set about jury-rigging an access. "Hey." He said when the thing came on by itself. "I think it sensed my gene. Cool. This place is just like Atlantis, except for being the size of a small moon."

Sheppard nodded. McKay was right about one thing, there would be so much to learn here. And a pure quantum power source, one unfiltered by a ZPM unit, could be modified into a formidable weapon against the Wraith or the Replicators. If only he didn't have the gut feeling that there was more than meets the eye to 'Jennie' or anything else here.

"Learn what you can Rodney. You've only got a few minutes and-"

"Hold on..."

McKay was staring at his laptop and then looked up at Sheppard and the others. The look on his face was one Sheppard recognised from years past; Rodney was excited about something. Sheppard walked over to him. "What?"

"There are huge energy readings here."

"So what - a _million_ Replicators?" Sheppard asked. "All the more reason to-"

"No-no-no-no, not Replicators – life signs; _life _readings."

Sheppard read it for himself. "Shit." He turned to Ronan and Teyla. "McKay's right, we've got life readings." He turned in a small circle, lips grim. In a whisper _"Goddamnit!"_

It meant there was no leaving so quickly. He looked at Rodney and back down at the new kink in their plans, the wiggly lines he had come to learn represented organic life. With a wee smidgen of hope - "Can you tell whether it's human or animal - _vegetable?_ Maybe these Replicators are really great gardeners."

Rodney shook his head and his hopes were dashed. "Not plants. Animal maybe, but they could be human."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Ronan asked a question he already knew the answer to. "Why didn't the Jumper detect them?"

Rodney shook his head again "Because the outer crust is too thick. It prevented us from getting any readings what-so-ever from outside. It's only now that we're here, under the crust..."

"Yeah." Sheppard did not look happy. Considering the maze-like extent of the place Sheppard considered it all luck that the Daedulus didn't beam them into a rock wall. "Lucky us."

Ronan walked over to the colonel for, if nothing else, to remind his leader about their primary mission. "What if it _is_ animal? Are we actually thinking of leaving the Replicators to go on their way because of a few animals?"

"Not a few." Rodney said. "From the size of these readings, it's gotta' be in the order of millions."

Sarcastically - "Naturally," Sheppard said. Sometimes he hated Rodney's damn scanner. "Well, now we _gotta'_ check to make sure. I'm not going to blow up a million people just to say we succeeded."

McKay studied him curiously. "And what if there is a sizable human population living here? What do we...I mean, we're four people...how do we...?"

Sheppard snapped "Same page, McKay - obviously I haven't figured _that_ part out yet."

XXX


End file.
